


Time and relative dimension in space

by nieded



Series: Ground Control [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 5 + 1, F/M, Future Character Death, Ground Control continuation, M/M, copious doctor who references, space travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 22:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20713898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nieded/pseuds/nieded
Summary: In which Warlock grows up and fulfils his lifelong dream of studying space and time.Or, five times Warlock travels back in time and one time he travels to the future.





	Time and relative dimension in space

“Hey, Doc, you ready?” Jack asks as he pops his head in the doorway of the prep room. 

Warlock sits on the bench in his navigational suit, gloves off and hands clasped between his legs. He lifts his head. “Don’t fuck this up, Captain. I’m not getting discorporated out there.” 

Jack grins, all teeth. He has a classic good-boy charm about him in his Astronautics Orbital t-shirt, American accent, and parted hair. In another life, Warlock would have fallen head over heels for him, but he has been there and done that. Now his only love in life is space. 

“They’re thirty minutes to the countdown. You better take a piss before you go.” 

Warlock snorts. “What, no words of motivation? No, congratulations partner, you’re a pioneer, the first person to test time travel? Hope you don’t get spliced?” 

“I can’t let you get all cocky thinking I care about you, can I?” Jack says. He extends a hand and pulls Warlock off the bench. “Let’s go. Chief is getting antsy.”

Jack escorts him down the hall to the main event, a large room with an oblong capsule in the centre hooked up to several tubes and wires. The control board sits behind a wall of tempered glass in a soundproof chamber.

The CEO of Astronautics Orbital, Mark Favre comes and shakes Warlock’s hand. “Momentous day for us all, Doctor Crowley.”

“Too bad it won’t make the headlines,” Jack says. “Astronautics Orbital’s stocks would rise overnight if they knew what we’re accomplishing.”

Warlock spares him a wry smile. “Sure, until it floats belly up or goes down in a ball of fire. Then we’re all tanked. I mean, me especially since I’ll be dead”

Favre gives Jack a long look down the bridge of his nose. “Captain Hernandez, please remember this is a highly confidential and classified experiment, and if a single word leaks about this project, I’ll be coming for your head.”

Jack grins, slapping him on the shoulder. “Relax, Chief. I got this.”

The overhead intercom clicks on and a voice resonates through the room through the speakers. “All right everyone. Positions.” 

Favre shakes Warlock’s hand one last time with a firm, strong squeeze. “Good luck.” 

“No dying,” Jack says, pointing at him, “or whatever it is you say.”

“Discorporating.”

“None of that.” He bounces once on the balls of his feet and then exits the chamber, taking a seat behind the control board as co-pilot. 

Warlock shakes his head. Then he twists his shoulders and cracks his neck in an attempt to relieve some of his tension. He won’t admit it out loud to anyone but he’s terrified. This has been a lifelong project, theorized in his dissertation when he went for his first PhD. Now, four doctorates later and a high-paying position with a private space nautical company, he gets to pioneer time travel.

He steps into the capsule and the door seals shut with a hydraulic hiss. He connects his ear wire and calibrates the device on his wrist, a time module and communicator which will allow him to stay in touch with command after launch. Jack’s voice comes in clear and crisp. “Doc, do you read me? Over.”

“Copy. Over.”

“All right, Doc. You remember the rules. No interacting with your environment. This is a test run, and you get 15 minutes at each stop. Do you understand? Over.”

“Roger that. Over.” Warlock says and starts the initial systems check.

“Stand by.” The mic mutes for a second before clicking on again. “All right, we are good to go on our end. Status update?”

“I am good to go on my end. All systems clear. Over.”

“Engaging start-up protocols,” Jack says. Warlock’s time module lights up, the LED screen matching the countdown clock on the wall. He inhales and long and steady breath, steeling his nerves. “Engines on.”

Warlock rolls his eyes. “You know this doesn’t require an engine. It’s a computer navigational system with RAM a trillion times faster than your stupid desktop at home.  _ Why _ you still have one, I’ll never know.”

“Shut up, Doc. I’m delivering you your long-time fantasy. “Engines on, check ignition. And may God’s love be with you.”

Warlock exhales a silent laugh and looks up at the ceiling of the pod. He hopes God is watching, though whether She’s impressed or livid with humanity’s hubris, he doesn’t know. 

“Commencing control trip. Five… four… three... Two--good luck, Doc--one…”

  
  


Warlock feels nauseous. If this is what transportation feels like, he understands why Bones from Star Trek was so afraid of being spliced. He doesn’t know what hurts more, his head or stomach, and falls to the floor on his hands and knees. He checks his time module and sighs in relief. It’s the right era, the right place, the right time, just after midnight. With luck, most everyone will be asleep. 

“Come in, Doc. Do you copy?” Jack’s voice resonates in his ear, loud and clear. 

“Fascinating,” Warlock says. “I copy. You’re loud and clear. Over.”

“How’s it feel?”

“Like I’m going to vomit. It’s a good thing I materialized in a bathroom.”

It’s not just any bathroom. He knows this space like the back of his hand, the enormous clawfoot tub, the black and white backsplash over the sink and the waterfall showerhead and marble tiling. His window cling of Skye from Paw Patrol sticks to the mirror, her aeroplane wings spread in flight. 

“All right, you have fourteen minutes and thirty seconds. Over.”

“Copy that.” Warlock mutes his mic. He steps out of the bathroom and peers down the hall. On one end is his childhood bedroom where his younger self is sleeping off a day of cake and crashing his tricycle into the furniture. The other end leads to the kitchen, the light notes of jazz, and the soft clink of a wine glass settling on the marble counter. 

Warlock walks down the hall and leans against the wall for a long moment, taking in the sight of his ageless dad. His back is to him, hunched over with one hand propping him up under his chin. He swirls the wine in his glass, frames off and hair a mess from running his hand through it. He looks unhappy which is a strange and unexpected realization. Warlock remembers his fifth birthday as one of his most exciting parts of his childhood. He’d gotten a new magic kit, and Aziraphale had sat with him for hours helping him practise his new skills. Dad had finally said yes to letting him go to school.

“Er, hello,” he says. 

His dad stiffens and his head cocks to one side before he slides around on his barstool. He wears a glassy-eyed look, yellow eyes bleary and half-lidded. “Wrong housssse, mister,” he slurs, tumbling off the stool. He staggers over to him. “Who are ya and whaddya want?”

Warlock smiles, tentative, nervous. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Hey, Dad. I’m from the future.” 

His dad blinks at him and then makes a face, frowning as he looks down at himself. “Oh noooo, I think I’ve had too much. How much is too much? Three bottlessss?”

Warlock catches him as he stumbles and guides him to the couch. He plops him down and looms over him. It’s weird seeing him like this, drunk and discombobulated. He’s always been a figure of composure, wielding an air of untouchability like a weapon when it came to onlookers and naysayers. All things considered, however, he doesn’t seem too shocked by his own son appearing as a middle-aged man in the middle of his living room while his child is also sleeping just a hallway down.

“What happened? Why are you trashed?”

“Bleh, why should I tell you anything? You’re some whack job claiming to be from the future.”

Warlock crosses his arms. “All right, humour me. I’m just a figure of your drunken imagination, after all.” 

His dad narrows his eyes. “You’re gonna grow up to be this much of a smart arse?”

“I learn it from the best.”

Crowley laughs, a mix between a hiccup and a sob. “It’sss your birthday today,” he says. “Five years old. And in sssix years you’re going to transform into the Spawn of Hell and kill us all, and I just don’t have enough time. I want more time.” He doesn’t even look at Warlock, not really. He looks through him at the blank TV behind him. “I’m a shit perssson,” he says. 

Warlock sits down, quiet next to him for a long moment. He looks at his father, hunched over with his head between his knees. He sways back and forth, equilibrium lost. Of course, he doesn’t know the truth, that Warlock isn’t the Antichrist or the harbinger of the end of the world. He could tell him, alleviate some of his dad’s pain, but if Control knew he was even interacting with him and mucking up the timelines… Well. 

“Six years is loads of time yet,” he says instead. 

“Not to an immortal being, it’s not. I’ve wasted a lot of this life, you know. Took me six thousand years to pull my head out of my arse, and now I only have six years left to savour it. Savour you. Make up all those lost centuries with Aziraphale too.” 

And, oh, Warlock realizes. They always told him they weren’t together when Crowley started raising him, that they figured things out later when he was a kid. As an adult, he tried going through his memories, tried to pinpoint just when they got together, but he only remembered the two of them as a unit, his dads. 

He looks at him now, the mussed hair, the drunkenness, the coffee table pushed back and the big band swing playing. He remembers how Aziraphale started coming around a lot more after his fifth birthday. 

“You’re a pathetic drunk,” Warlock says, “aren’t you?”

“I’m just pathetic. I’m hallucinating this fantasy Warlock from an alternate universe coming to tell me it’s all right. It’s bad enough I still hold out hope from an answer from Above.” He looks up at the ceiling and points a rude gesture upward. 

Warlock’s intercom clicks on. “ _ Doc, do you read me? You’ve been radio silent. Over, _ ” Jack says. 

“It’ll be fine,” he tells his dad. “I promise. You have loads of time yet.” 

Crowley snorts.

“ _ I’m getting worried, Warlock,” Jack says. “I’m pulling you back. Countdown commencing in ten… nine… _ ”

Warlock pulls him close, the way his dad always did when he was a child. He’s so lucky he gets to have this for the rest of his life. Other people’s parents die, but his are eternal. He can’t imagine what his dad must feel like, thinking the world is ending. “She’s listening,” he tells him, voice fervent. He needs him to understand. “Her plan is ineff--”

Warlock gets pulled back to the present day with a  _ whumph _ and a fresh wave of nausea. He doubles over his pod, gripping his stomach, face hot and eyes stinging with held back tears. Jesus Christ. 

“Warlock? Doc? Hey, hey!” Jack says through the intercom. “Somebody pull him outta there.”

He puts up a hand so they can see it through the capsule window. “No, I’m good. It’s all right.” He wipes at his eyes. “Just feeling a bit overwhelmed, ‘s all. Tha’s not an easy trip. How do I sign up for first-class, priority seating?”

Jack collapses in his seat, letting out a whoosh of air. “God, you’re such a smart ass,” he says.

A second voice comes over the comm. “Did you interact with anyone?” 

“No sir, Mr Favre,” Warlock responds, the vision of his dad drunk and wobbling fresh in his mind. 

“You need a break, Doc?”

He shakes his head. He syncs his coordinates for the next stop. “I’m ready to go.”

Through the glass, he can see Jack shake his head. “All right, you’re the boss. Well, besides Chief here. You know what I mean.” He inputs his coordinates on their end and Warlock’s HUD lights up. “Modifying first variable, year. Countdown commencing, we are a go. Five… four… three… two… one…”

_ Whumph _ . Same headache. Same nausea. Vertigo, Warlock heads spins and he slides down the bathroom wall, gripping the towel rack. “Fuck,” he hisses. He drops his head in his hands in an attempt to get his bearings. Then he lies down on the cool tile.

The door swings open. “What the Heaven was tha--Oh. Warlock.” 

He looks ups. “Hey Dad, just dropping in again.” 

Crowley stares at him from the doorway of the bathroom, eyes wide. He wears a faded henley and black flannel pyjama bottoms slung low on his hips. His hair is mussed, a hint of stubble growing on his face. “I swear to You,” he says looking upward, “I am sober. Why am I still hallucinating?”

Warlock taps his time module on his wrist. “Like I said, time travel. From the future. Yada yada yada.”

His dad frowns, eyes narrowing. “I’ve seen  _ Back to the Future _ . You’re not supposed to cross timelines.” 

“I figured you were an exception. Immortality and all that.”

Crowley crouches down and looks at him. His glasses are off, eyes narrowed and brows furrowed. “All right?”

Warlock puts a hand up for him to wait. Then he pulls a face, swallowing down bile. “Just a sec. Time travel, I’m learning, takes a bit out of you.”

His dad quirks an eyebrow at that. “They didn’t prep you on the ins and outs of zooming through time before you signed up?”

“I’m the first one, the guinea pig.”

Crowley lets out a disgruntled noise at that. He reaches out with a tentative hand and brushes back his hair, growing thinner now in the front more than Warlock would like. “I just got you to keep. Don’t go mucking yourself about.” 

“So I got it right then?” Warlock asks. “My eleventh birthday party?” 

“Night of. Went off without a hitch. I can go wake Aziraphale if you want.” 

Warlock shakes head. It’s better not to mess too much with the timeline. Dad can keep his secret. He knows that. Dad has kept some of his darkest musings and biggest mistakes to himself without espousing to Aziraphale a word. Besides, he just saw them both not two days prior. He hadn’t mentioned to them just where he would be time-hopping, and he didn’t miss the fact that his dad had stayed mum about it. “You can’t tell anyone about this. Not even me.”

Crowley smiles. “All right. Little you has to carve his own path, is that?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re looking peaked. Are you sure you’re okay? Need water? The loo?”

Warlock thinks back to his eleventh birthday party, the laser tag, the screaming in the dark with his toy gun, opening the trunk and finding Spirit. “It’s a stupid thing, but…” He looks at his dad who has never judged him for the things he wants, the things he’s wanted. “Will you read to me from that book?”

Crowley’s eyebrow lift, his face going soft. “Yeah, yeah of course. I’ll go get it.” He disappears out of the bathroom, feet quiet down the hall. It’s in his nature--snakelike and stealthy. Warlock needs more than just his hands and toes to count the number of times he’s gotten snuck upon. He hears the lock to his bedroom door unlatch and wonders how he ever went without realizing his dad could do magic. 

He pops back into the bathroom with a copy of  _ The Darkest Dark. _ He sits on the floor next to Warlock and pulls his head into his lap. “I have only five minutes left,” he tells him. 

“I’ll just have to keep it then for the next time you pop up.” Then he begins. 

“ _ Commencing variable two, time, in three… two… one… _ ”

Ow shit fuck. It’s moments like these that Warlocks remembers why Abe used to say he sounded just like his old man. After the whole apocalypse was averted, his dad started swearing a lot more. Gone was his filter and out came his mischievousness. 

Warlock’s whole body aches from the time jumps. Fuck his spine and fuck Abe too, he thinks. Let bygones be bygones, as Aziraphale says. He hoists himself up, gripping the towel bar and checks his time module. This time the year did not change but the time did, so he should be in Mayfair just around six pm. They had come from the arcade and dropped his new little puppy off to go get pizza. Fifteen minutes should be plenty of time before anyone comes back.

He eases open the bathroom door and pokes his head out into the hallway. “Hello?” he shouts, just in case. The lights are all off, the flat silent, and then he hears it. A soft whine comes from his childhood bedroom. 

Warlock creeps out into the hallway. He feels a bit nefarious like he’s ten again instead of a thirty-eight-year-old man. He checks over his shoulder and then jiggles the door handle to the bedroom. Locked, shit. 

He hears Spirit whine louder. His younger self must have the key, though Dad always got in when he needed to. Damn demons. Damn supernatural beings. Damn the occult. Then he pauses. Nanny Ash always got in too, even when his dads weren’t around. 

He reaches above the door frame and feels around the ledge until he touches something cool and metallic. He pulls it down. Aha, the key. With a snick, the door unlocks and he swings it open and enters. 

Next to his bed, a small wire crate stuffed with blankets and a few toys sits, rattling. Spirit, still a puppy during his first day in his new home, yelps to be let out. “Hey buddy,” Warlock says, unlatching the crate.

The puppy rushes to his lap, climbing his pant leg. He scoops him up and flips him on his back like a baby. He doesn’t remember him being so small, but then again, he was quite a bit smaller back then too. 

“Hey, Spirit,” he says. “You don’t know me yet, but I’m going to be your best bud.” He presses his nose to the soft belly, inhaling that new puppy smell. Then he touches each pad, smoothing his fingers over the fur between his toes. “We’re going to go on so many adventures together. We’ll go hiking in Scotland and joyride in the Bentley and explore every bush in St. James Park. You’ll even catch a bird and scare the hell out of me.” 

And of all things, it’s this little puppy that makes him choke up. He’s had lovers and friends leave but the most important people in his life are immortal except Spirit, except this little creature who gave him twelve good years before he passed while Warlock was away at university. “I just want you to know I miss you every day. I tried to get home to say goodbye. Aziraphale says you knew I wanted to see you, that you knew I loved you. I wonder if he could feel that from you.”

Spirit nips at his fingers and wags his tail. On his back, he rolls side-to-side, barking little yelps whenever Warlock stops petting him. “I’m going to read to you every day. We’ll go on walks, and you’ll sleep in my bed. You’ll jump on Dad in the mornings, and he’ll grump at you, but we’ll both know he’s just pretending.”

His watch beeps and he curses. With care, he cradles Spirit’s little body as he puts him back in the kennel, reaching in and kissing him on the nose. “Thanks in advance for everything, my little explorer.” Warlock latches the crate and slips out of the bedroom, turning the knob just as he feels a familiar lurch pulling him back. The key falls on the floor. 

“ _ Commencing variable three, location, in three… two… one… _ ”

Warlock lunges for the nearest rubbish bin and vomits, limbs and abdomen aching. He heaves twice more before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, slumping against the exterior of the Tate. He shakes himself off and waves at the staring passersby, climbing to his feet.

He’s following a hunch. When Warlock was 22 and studying for his masters in astrophysics, his dads started calling him weekly on separate lines. It went on for months. Every time he asked about the other, they’d give some offhand comment. “You know how he is… He’s busy running the bookshop,” or “He’s out harassing the ducks. Try his mobile.” Crowley would FaceTime him occasionally, unkempt and leaking exhaustion from the corners of his eyes. Then some time just shy of Christmas break, everything went back to normal. Joint video chats and conversations put on speaker. He got a postcard signed from both of them by way of Japan. 

He checks his time module. Present Warlock should be at Oxford sitting his summer exams, and if his dad is at all predictable, he’s wallowing on a bench staring at some metaphorical piece of art cursing out his mother. 

Warlock finds him on the third floor sitting in front of a William Blake painting,  _ Satan Smiting Job with Sore Boils _ . Delightful. He takes up the whole bench, legs spread, arms spanning across the back. He hangs his head, staring at the piece of work over the rims of his glasses, sneering at any onlooker who catches the yellow of his eyes. From a distance, he looks like shit. 

Warlock sits down next to him. His dad rolls his eyes before he looks and says, “Seat’s taken. Move along.”

“I think I’m fine just where I am.”

Crowley’s head snaps up, mouth parting. Then he softens. “Ah,” he says. “Fancy seeing you around these parts.”

Warlock folds his hands on his lap and looks at the painting. It’s both gruesome yet hilarious, Satan with his chiselled body and cherubic face. Even his red leathery wings look majestic.

“He doesn’t look like that in real life,” his dad says. “Well, none of us really look as we do. He can put on a good face when he wants to, but he so rarely makes it topside.” 

Warlock’s only seen his dad’s snake form twice in his life. He’s gleaned enough over the decades to know all of the Devil’s work from the Bible was often miscredited, and he considers the painting again. “Boils, really?”

“Psh. They always blow it up out of proportion. It was more like an unfortunate and unattractive bout of acne.”

“Well, you definitely came off better looking in the painting than Job did.” 

“Oi,” Crowley says, smacking him in the back of the head. “I’m plenty good-looking, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh yeah, I know. Unfortunately, I’ve had to hear it from Dad one too many times how charming and handsome you are.” 

Crowley frowns and shifts in his seat. “Yeah, well.” Warlock looks at him. There it is. 

“You wanna talk about it?” he asks.

“Nope.” 

“I know something’s going on. Other me. At uni.” Warlock looks at him, but his dad has his face turned, staring off in the distance lost in thought. “Like, I don’t expect your life with Dad to be a bed of roses. I get it. Look at me, I’m middle-aged, single, and my hair is receding.”

“That moustache is pretty bad too,” his dad says offhand. 

“Okay, that was uncalled for.” He strokes his moustache covering his upper lip, smoothing down the bristles. He’s quite proud of it, to be honest, considering he could never get it to grow in fully until he hit twenty-eight. “The point is, it’s temporary.” 

Crowley looks at him. “The moustache?”

“No, you and Dad. This tiff.”

“I don’t know if you’re supposed to be telling me all that, the secrets of the future.”

Warlock closes his eyes, and when he looks back at his dad again, they are infinitely sadder. “I’m going to need you, really need you, in a couple of months so you have to sort your shit out.” He doesn’t tell him about Abe, the short-lived engagement and the affair, how it derails Warlock’s studies for half a year and leads him down a spiral of drinking and depression. The only thing that pulled him out was his dads, sitting on either side of him shoulder-to-shoulder, bickering over dinner night after night. If those two arseholes could make it after 6000 years, surely Warlock could find someone to last a lifetime with. 

He’s still looking, but he’s hopeful. 

“Deal?” he asks, extending a hand. 

Instead, Crowley reaches up and cups the back of his head, drawing their foreheads together. “If I could protect you from all the hurt in the world, I would.”

“You wouldn’t even if you could,” Warlock says. “You’ve always said, how do you enjoy the good things without experiencing the bad?” 

His time module beeps.

“Call him, yeah?” 

Crowley closes his eyes and when he speaks again his voice comes out creaking and low. “Yeah. I will. Will I see you--”

_ Whumph _ . 

He lurches and lands back in the pod, the back of his skull tingling where his dad’s hand had rested. Fuck. 

“Doc, you’re looking a bit peaky,” Jack says through the comm. “Do you need a break?”

Warlock shakes his head, leaning forward in his seat, and presses his forehead to the cool glass. “Just give me a sec, okay? Let’s do this last jump.” 

“Are you sure? We’re changing a lot of variables this time.” 

“I’m good, really. But we need to work on ease and comfort of time travel before we go public, yeah?” He wipes at his face, dripping from a cold sweat. “Punch it, Captain.”

Jack shakes his head from the other side of the window, looking up at Favre. “Yeah all right, but I’m pulling you out after this one. Commencing variable four: time, location, and date in three… two… one…”

The sound of glass crashing against the floor wakes Warlock up. “Oh my goodness,” a voice says before a warm palm touches his forehead. 

Warlock blinks, eyes opening to find a teacup smashed on the ground next to his head and a fluff of white hair moving from the corner of his eye. “You allrigh’ Da’?” he slurs.

“Am I all right?” Aziraphale asks, voice pitching upward. “My dear, it’s you I’m worried about. You gave me quite a fright.” He snaps his fingers and the spilt tea and shattered teacup dematerialized. “I’ll go get your dad. He’s in the back garden.”

“Mm, no. Stay.” Warlock pushes himself upward, dizzy, and two strong hands come around and grip him under the arms, pulling him into the kitchen chair. “You don’t seem surprised to see me,” he says once he gets his bearings.

His dad smiles, rosy-cheeked and illuminated by the sunlight streaming in from the floor to ceiling glass windows overlooking the garden. He looks as eternal as ever, suited down to the bones in their little retirement cottage in South Downs. “I wasn’t sure when to expect you, but your dad told me about your adventures. My boy, _pioneering_ _time travel_.” Aziraphale pulls up a chair and sits down. He pinches his fingers together and pulls downward, as though tugging a lamp string, and two fresh teacups appear on the table. “Tell me all about it. I want to know everything.”

And this is exactly what Warlock needs after time-hopping: his home, his dad, a cup of miracled tea and conversation basking in the mid-morning sun. “It’s amazing,” he tells him. He curls his hands around his tea and pauses for a moment. How does he express how amazing his life has become? 

“I have this friend, Jack, who’s my co-pilot. He’s such an arse. He gives everyone nicknames, and we call him Captain, and--”

“Who are you?”

“I’m the Doctor, or just Doc, cause you know, I have four degrees.”

“Four degrees!” Aziraphale exclaims, sloshing his tea just a bit. 

“Why? How many do I have now?” 

His dad purses his lips a bit. “I think just two, but you’re working on your third in America right now. We’re planning a trip to come see you in Boston.”

Warlock nods, taking a gulp his tea. “Yeah, the fourth one is kind of an adjunct. I’m doing two different programs and writing two dissertations, but they’re related.” 

“My dear,” his dad says. “You never cease to amaze me. What about your home life though? I do always worry about you, so dedicated to work and your studies as you are.”

Warlock shrugs. “I get that from Dad, you know.” 

“Oh yes,” Aziraphale says, nodding, “you and your ceaseless questioning, all the time. But you need balance.”

Warlock looks down at his teacup. They’ve had this conversation before, his one dad always pushing him to question authority, challenge himself, be relentless and unapologetic about his identity, and his other dad reminding him he needs balance and peace and love, that it’s  _ okay to be happy_. Is he?

“It’s good. I’m good,” he says after some thought. “When you see me--other me--in Boston, you’re going to meet this girl I’m seeing, Layla. And we’re kinda off and on still. And there’s Jack. We go drinking together after work. I’m part of a movie club.” 

Aziraphale smiles. “That’s lovely. This girl sounds very… American.” 

“Straight out of Eric Clapton, she is.” 

“Ah, who’s that? A movie star?” 

“Blues. Rock.”

“Oh  _ music _ ,” his dad says, nodding. “I see.” He does not.

Warlock smiles into his cup. “And you, are you happy?”

His dad startles at that, shoulders straightening as his mouth parts in a surprised little  _ oh _ . As a child Warlock never paid attention to that sort of stuff. His dads were parents, not people. It wasn’t until he was much older that he realized they’d lived thousands of lives over, had their own foibles and problems. Aziraphale puts on a good show, always bubbling, always mediating his partner’s moods, the counterweight on the other side of the lever. 

“You know,” Aziraphale says after a moment, “I never dreamt I could have this: a home to settle in, a family, freedom. I was a bit like you when I was younger. I always had a job and responsibilities I put ahead of my own desires.” He looks out of the back windows towards the garden, the small figure of Crowley appearing and reappearing between the bushes with a pair of shears. “It cost me a lot of time, and time is eternal for me. You see why I worry about you, don’t you?”

“I do,” Warlock says. He reaches for his dad’s hand. “I am happy. It’s all good, I promise. Life’s not perfect, but I’m making the best go at it. You taught me how to do that.” 

Aziraphale smiles, a bit watery. “My dear, I could never wish for anything more.” He squeezes his hand back.

Warlock’s time module beeps. “Look, before I go, I gotta ask… What do you think of the moustache?”

“Oh!” Aziraphale says. “He gave you a hard time about it didn’t he?” 

Warlock nods.

“He’s just sensitive about it. Your dad had this garish big thing on his face back in the 70s, like a rat attached to his face. I used to have a photograph, but alas, I think he set it on fire. Don’t mind him. I think you look lovely.”

_ Whumph. _

“Uh, Doc? Why are you laughing?” Jack asks.

Warlock throws his head back against his seat, choking back laughter. He tries to imagine his dad with a big, scruffy mustache. How did they look in the 70s? Bell bottoms? Long hair? Oooh, aviator sunglasses, too.

“All right, that’s it. Crowley’s lost it. Get him outta there,” Jack says through the comm. The pod door swings open.

The hydraulic door hisses and Favre exits the booth, stepping around to help escort Warlock out of the pod. “Dr Crowley, are you all right?” 

Warlock waves him off. “I’m fine, sir. If you don’t mind, I’m just going to take a quick loo break.”

“Told you should have pissed earlier,” Jack says over the speaker. He follows Warlock into the locker rooms. 

Warlock excuses himself and ducks around the corner to the urinals. He doesn’t even need to see Jack to know he’s leant himself against the lockers, arms folded over his chest and ankles crossed like some gym teacher about to give a pep talk to an American football team on TV. 

“I don’t hear a lot of pissing in there.”

“Desolate Lucifer and all that’s unholy, can a guy get a moment’s peace?” Warlock looks up at the ceiling, fly unzipped, and blinks at the fluorescent lighting. He looks behind him and makes a face in the mirrors above the sinks.

Jack shuffles, settling himself on the benches. “I’m just worried. We hypothesized there’d be some physical side effects--all of which your exhibiting, by the way--and yet you insisted on pushing through four consecutive jumps. Who knows what it’s done to your body, let alone that big dumb brain of yours.”

“It almost sounds like you care, Captain.” 

There’s a silent pause for a moment, so loud he can hear Jack pick at his nails. “Just between you and me,” he says after a moment, “did you really not interact with anybody? Like… I looked up the coordinates you chose, and they’re all residential besides the Tate. You just popped off into people’s homes. I have no idea how Favre approved that.”

“Nothing’s between you and me,” Warlock says. “If you think we’re not being filmed in every room we walk through in this lab then you’re stupid. Favre is probably watching me pee right now. Besides, I chose my childhood homes for very select reasons because I could guarantee no one would be around. Family holidays and the like.” Then, as an afterthought, he says, “I waved at a woman when she saw me vomit in a trashcan.”

There’s a snort, the sound of Jack thunking his head against the lockers. “Smooth, real smooth. No wonder you can never get Layla to stick around for more than a few days.”

“I mean, yeah, that’s totally my fault and not the fact that she has a tenured position at Harvard.” 

“If it was true love, she’d leave and stay with you in London.”

“If it was true love, I’d leave and stay with her in Boston,” Warlock counters. 

Jack makes a thoughtful sound, a grunt. “But you won’t do that.”

Warlock shakes his head even though he knows Jack can’t see him. “Nope. Neither will she. So.”

“So you’re just a sad lonely bastard.”

Warlock zips and flushes the urinal, turning to wash his hands and splash water on his face and neck. He broke out into a cold sweat, and it’s cooled sticky on his skin. “I have you still.” 

“That’s not much of a consolation prize.”

“Well, us lonely bastards have to stick together, don’t we?”

  
  


They exit the locker room and stop by the canteen. Warlock chugs a bottle of water and a Coke in quick succession. “That’ll kill you, you know,” Jack says.

“I just travelled back in time. I could die tomorrow, and I wouldn’t care.” 

Jack makes a face and then shrugs, conceding the point. “You ready for this last one?” 

Warlock nods. Caffeine always has the opposite effect on him, calming his nerves, but he’s still nervous about going to the future. Who knows what he’ll see or if he’ll find who he’s looking for. “It’ll be fine. I’m not jumping too far ahead so hopefully, I won’t run into anything too life-altering.” Besides, the person he’s looking for is immortal. 

They walk back to the launch room and separate as they hit Control, Jack taking up position at the conn and Warlock in the pod. Favre nods at him through the window, arms crossed, the tiniest furrow in his brow belying his worry. 

“Okay, here we are,” Jack says, swivelling his chair. “Coordinates for seventy years in the future. You’ll appear in a storage closet in Barts so long as the schematics haven’t changed too much.”

Warlock snorts. “The rate Britain moves I’m sure it’ll be exactly the same down to the very same plumbing.” 

“Why a hospital, Doc?” Jack asks. 

“Doctor Crowley and I agreed it would be a relatively safe location to drop, not too far in the future but far enough to…  _ observe _ ,” Favre says. Then he gives Warlock a pointed look through the glass. “Remember, no interacting with people. Keep a low profile, and report back as much information as you can.”

Jack spares Chief a look before meeting eyes with Warlock. They’re both aware of Favre’s less pure motivations for time travel. A peek into the future could change the whole course of history. 

He’ll be disappointed when Warlock has nothing to report of interest upon his return. He couldn’t say why he chose the coordinates or the year he did except that, like his dad’s old Bentley, surrounding oneself in the occult has an interesting effect on regular old things and regular humans. The car plays Queen for Dad and Bowie for Warlock, and he barely has to touch the wheel to tell it where it to go as it knows already what he wants. Warlock has a feeling, an intuition, about this specific date and location he can’t explain. He just knows he needs to go there. 

He lets out three quick successive breaths and feels the caffeine thrumming through him, a jittery mix of adrenaline and nerves. He gives Jack the thumbs up. 

“Commencing variable five, to infinity and beyond!”

“Captain Hernandez, may I remind you this is all on record?”

“Sorry, sir. Launch in five… four… three... two... one--”

_ Whumph _ . 

Ah fuck. Warlock doubles over and vomits, tilting sideways until his head collides with the metal framing of a shelf. “Nnngh,” he groans, wiping at his mouth. Satan, that was brutal. His insides feel as though everything catapulted upwards into his throat. Hrrnng. 

He staggers to his feet, bracing himself on the shelf as the world tilts.  _ Breathe War, _ he thinks.  _ Get a grip _ . Right. He reaches for the door handle and staggers out into the hall, blinking for a moment. 

In some ways, it looks just the same with nondescript laminate flooring and strange and inoffensive abstract art decorating the walls. The lights have been all replaced with warm LEDs, panels in the ceiling that disperse the light throughout. Good riddance flickering fluorescents. The place smells of sanitizer, the sharp acrid smell hitting his nose, and he can hear the soft whirs and beeps of the various machines in the rooms. 

He’s close to where he needs to be. He can feel it. 

He moves through the corridor and gives a passing nurse a polite nod, poking his head into various rooms when no one looks. He checks his time module, time ticking down, and hastens his pace. 

Then he turns the corner and runs smack dab into a man holding two cups of tea. “Excuse me, I’m sorry,” he says, scrambling to catch the falling cups. They splat on the floor, and he looks up to apologize and then freezes. “Ah,” he says.

“Oh Hell,” the man says, face crumpling. He collapses to the ground, hand sliding down the wall for purchase, his glasses pushed askew to reveal the full-blown yellow of his eyes. 

“Breathe, Dad, it’s all right.”

“Ah, hng, War--Warlock.” Crowley’s voice cracks.

Warlock sits down next to his dad, avoiding the mess of tea and pulls him close. “All right?”

Crowley shakes his head. “I am absolutely not all right. The ghost of my dead son just smacked into me.” 

Warlock widens his eyes and rears back. “Oh! I--when--?”

“Just now.” 

“Christ.”

“Yep. Good timing.” His dad says and huffs, swallowing hard. “I was just bringing your old man some tea.” He rubs his eyes and looks at Warlock with an expression he’s never seen before, eyes red and skin sallow, raw from being scrubbed. “You’re something else, did you know that?”

Warlock draws his legs up to his knees in a feeble attempt to protect himself from the rage of emotions crashing through him. Not often do people face their own future mortality. 

Back before, when things first kicked off with Layla, she had flown to Boston for her postdoc program in a whir of fury, wild-eyed and hollowed out. Warlock was there because he had a vision, a dream to pursue a career in space he’d harboured since a child with youtube and a crush on David Bowie. Layla had been there because she once had given up pursuing a career in astrophysics for a family, and then watched her husband and daughter get t-boned by a semi crossing an intersection one night from the passenger seat like being front row, VIP, to a demolition derby. 

Layla, back in Boston, could never commit to Warlock because she’s still married to a dead man and raising a ghost. There are times when they’re in bed, legs tangled under the covers with the yellow light of the streetlamps pouring in, that she laughs at his terrible impressions of Montgomery Scott, and then freezes, remembering she’s not allowed to experience joy anymore.

Dad has the same haunted expression like he might never smile again. Aziraphale, Warlock knows, will be fine. He’s made of a different kind of resilience, of hopefulness. Dad, on the other hand, has an ability to put his head down and grind through anything.

It took a long time to realize that despite defeating the hosts of Heaven and Hell, he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Was it a good life?” Warlock asks him.

Crowley huffs, blinking. The movement is unnatural on his otherwise still and expressionless face. “It was short.” 

“Nah, I reckon I was… a hundred and ten? Gosh, are people really living that long these days?”

“You were on the short end, actually. They said, uh, the impacts of your job caused additional stress on your corporation. You should go into accounting.”

Warlock laughs, kicking a leg out, his boot sliding in the spilt tea. “Not a chance. I’m going to enjoy every moment of my short life. And you know what?” he asks, turning his head.

His dad stares back at him, eyebrows lifted, mouth parted the way he does whenever he sees something he adores. “What?” 

“I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“You’ve only lived half of it so far. How would you know? Maybe the second half is shit.” 

Warlock shakes his head. “I don’t think it will be, though. I have proof. You and Dad are still here. I get to have you for the rest of my life. What other kid gets that?” 

Dad smiles at that, a little bit of his stress bleeding away. 

“I get to live in history forever thanks to you.” 

Crowley smiles, slight and stilted but genuine all the same. “Yeah, you do.” 

“And hey, you were pretty good at this parenting lark, don’t you think?” 

“You turned out pretty all right. I’d do some things differently, though I’m not sure they’d make a difference,” he says with a shrug.

Warlock’s time module beeps and he looks down at the countdown. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.” He leans forward and kisses his dad on the cheek. “Goodbye, Dad.”

Crowley grips his forearm and pulls him close, pressing his nose to his temple to breathe him in. He swallows hard and Warlock can feel the motion. “Goodbye, Beast. May God’s love--”

_ Whumph _ .

“--be with you.” 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This is the painting Crowley and Warlock look at in the Tate. 
> 
> 2\. “May God’s love be with you,” comes from Space Oddity.
> 
> 3\. Spot the Star Trek reference!
> 
> 4\. And spot the copious amounts of Doctor Who references.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! You can follow me on tumblr @nieded. <3


End file.
